Would White House green team help on climate?

The White House might need to create a centralized clearinghouse for climate policy if President Barack Obama wants to fulfill his promises to take on global warming, former advisers and other advocates say.

One potential approach: create a climate and energy council inside the White House to coordinate efforts across federal agencies, much like the National Economic Council or the National Security Council. Another would be to have a White House appointee perform the same type of role.

Text Size

-

+

reset

The concepts have drawn support from people outside the green activist community. Obama’s former national security adviser, retired Gen. James Jones, has recommended that the president create a “single point of contact to manage energy,” akin to the post of director of national intelligence that was created after Sept. 11. Former George W. Bush environmental aide James Connaughton has offered a different role model to coordinate energy policy: Dick Cheney’s former Energy Task Force.

One big unknown: whether Obama is interested in following any of this advice.

“I’m not going to speculate on organization in the White House,” Obama energy adviser Heather Zichal said last week when POLITICO asked her about a potential national energy council.

But some of Obama’s green supporters say they sense that people around the president know they need a new approach.

“I think there’s an appetite inside the White House that some kind of reorganization, some kind of strengthened team approach is needed,” said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Then again, he added, “I’m certainly not aware of any concrete decisions that have been made.”

John Podesta, chief of staff for former President Bill Clinton who chairs the Center for American Progress, said Obama would need to marshal all the forces in the administration if he is to push climate initiatives past the Republican-controlled House.

“I think the second term calls for somewhat of a different strategy,” he said. “There’s huge potential, huge authority, and that’s going to require leadership execution. And I see that as coming from the White House as opposed to just kind of letting each agency kind of figure out what to do.”

Podesta, who co-chaired Obama’s first transition team, and Todd Stern, who used to work at CAP and serves as the president’s top international climate negotiator, had advocated a national energy council as far back as 2008.

At the time, they pushed to put Clinton’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Carol Browner, in charge. While Obama tapped Browner to be his top climate and energy adviser — and his lead negotiator to Capitol Hill during the failed cap-and-trade talks — the council never materialized.

Still, Browner was an effective advocate during the first term, Podesta said, particularly in working with agencies on fuel-efficiency standards. “But I think she ended up spending the bulk of her time negotiating with the Hill,” he added.

Unlike the start of Obama’s first term, this time, the prospect for any legislative solution is “bleak,” Podesta said. That means the White House has to “find all the levers the president has,” he said.